Thursday, 5 February 2015

SOMEWHERE, A MOTH IS CRYING - DICK MILLINGTON R.I.P.

I've just been alerted by one ofcartoonist DICK MILLINGTON's
children that the editor of TV COMIC and creator of MIGHTY MOTH
sadly passed away at the age of 81 on the 4th of this month. Richard (Dick)

Millington is one of the true legends of British comics and his flame will burn
forevermore, undimmed even by death. I'm sure that all Criv-ites - indeed,
all of comics fandom - would like to pass on their condolences to Dick's
family and friends (including a certain little moth) at this sad time.

His art style was the first that ever made a big impression on me,
to the extent that I recognised it a year or two after first seeing MightyMoth in a TV Comic Holiday Special. (In 1962 or '63.) I didn't re-
call the name of the comic, but when I was idly leafing through an issue of
the weekly in a newsagent's one day and saw the diminutive lepidopteran,
I bought it immediately. Alas, another childhood hero gone. I wish I'd
had the privilege and honour of meeting him.

Below are some of my favourite Mighty Moth strips by Dick.
(Click to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.)

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

My father, Richard (Dick) Millington, died aged 81 on 4th February 2015. He was a very talented artist, best known for his comic creations over six decades. His career began at school, where he copied comic books and sold them for a penny. He'll be greatly missed by his family, and his friends, colleagues and admirers over the years.

Dick Millington was my Uncle Dick. I first met Uncle Dick in 1959. My mother moved to Canada shortly after WWII to marry her Canadian sweetheart, my Dad. As I was a child I heard a lot about my British family, and in 1959 I was lucky to meet them.

My Uncle Dick was friendly, kind, talented and funny. I was very fond of him.

He drew both my brother and I a "Mighty Moth" personalized cartoon in 1959, and I cherish it. My mother (his sister) kept a file full of her brother's comic strips. She was very proud of him.

I see you were confused by the comments moderation, Janet, but I've printed both your comments anyway. I'm sure you'll never part with that drawing of Mighty Moth. Dick will surely be missed by anyone who truly loves comic strips. Thank you so much for commenting.

STUDIO 77

About the artist:

From 1985 to 2000 A.D. (little joke there), I contributed to a variety of high profile comics and magazines for various companies.

For IPC/FLEETWAY/EGMONT, I freelanced as a lettering and logo artiston various weekly comics and monthly magazines, and also as a resize comic artistandspot illustratoron pocket books, summer specials and annuals.

ForMARVEL U.K., BLACK LIBRARY, REDAN and USBORNE BOOKS, I again freelanced as a lettering artist, also working as arestoration artistfor MARVEL U.S., restoring and re-creating certain pages of JACK KIRBY art for their MARVEL MASTERWORKS editions.

I also lettered the MARVELMAN sample pages submitted to MARVEL U.S. when they were considering acquiring the character, which - as we all now know - they DID.

Supplied comic strips, cartoons and illustrated advertisements for local business campaigns and newspaper publication on a professional basis since the age of 16. Did my first paid art job for publication at 14 or 15 for Lanarkshire Education Board.

Image Enlargement:

In a few instances some images are featured at full size (or larger) to begin with, so clicking is redundant.

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